As a child, Christopher Wheeldon was a ballet and musical theater kid, like as not listening to Tchaikovsky while his brothers had Michael Jackson’s Thriller on the turntable. His idea of an afternoon’s art project was reimagining the Victorian toy theater his father had built him into a Starlight Express set for his little electric cars. “I was that kid,” he says with a laugh.

But by the time Jackson had moved on to Bad in 1987, Wheeldon was ready to follow. “When I finally went to ballet boarding school, the Bad album was, kind of, my album. Those were my teen years, and my friends and I obsessively watched the Bad video. As ballet students, I think probably we saw the link to West Side Story, and I was starting to learn about Jerome Robbins and who he was and what he meant to theater, and so at that time Michael was really quite present in my life.”

As director and choreographer of MJ, the 10-time Tony-nominated musical about Michael Jackson and his music, Wheeldon would seem to have found the ideal subject matter for his teenage obsession. MJ, with book by the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, is a most unusual entry in the jukebox musical game, less given to the narrative gerrymandering that sinks other shows, and cleverly enlightening audiences on the inner workings of an artistic mind that could rightly be called genius.

Deadline spoke to Wheeldon about that process, about Jackson’s musical power and about the ever-present elephant in the rehearsal room – the allegations of child molestation levied against Jackson before and after his death. Wheeldon spoke about all this and more on the morning after the opening night of his latest project, a ballet based on the 1992 Mexican film Like Water For Chocolate. The ballet is being staged at London’s Royal Opera House with the Royal Ballet, and next summer will be performed in New York at the Metropolitan Opera House in a co-production with American Ballet Theatre.

Deadline spoke to Wheeldon – who is nominated for two Tony Awards (Best Direction/Musical and Best Choreography) – about all things Jackson, including how he recreated classic performances without resorting to mere impersonation, how he addressed the darker elements of the story, and even a few tech secrets responsible for some of the biggest thrillers of the just-ended Broadway.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

M.J. The Musical is playing at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway.

 

DEADLINE: How did MJ come to you?

CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON:  I received a phone call from Lia Vollack, the lead producer, three or four Christmases ago. Pardon me for not remembering exactly whether it was three or four, but I think I’ve lost track of time…

DEADLINE: Everyone has.

WHEELDON: Yeah. Anyway, she called me the day after Christmas, and we’d met on potential other projects and hit it off, and she said, how do you feel about Michael Jackson? And I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with the question, but I told her that as a young dance kid, even though I was a ballet dancer, Michael had been a huge influence on all of us as performing artists, and I’d grown up with his music, mostly through my brothers. I was sort of in my bedroom listening to Tchaikovsky and they were next door listening to Thriller. When I finally went to ballet boarding school, the Bad album was, kind of, my album. Those were my teen years, and my friends and I obsessively watched the Bad video. As ballet students, I think probably we saw the link to West Side Story, and I was starting to learn about Jerome Robbins and who he was and what he meant to theater, and so at that time Michael was really quite present in my life.

So the conversation with Lia just sort of evolved, and she said, we’ve got this property. Lynn Nottage is writing the book, and she has asked to have a sit down with you, if you’re interested.

And to be honest with you, as excited as I was at the prospect of doing this, I definitely felt like at some point, somebody’s gonna say this is a crazy idea. How is he going to be able to direct and choreograph this show? So, I was like, you know what, I won’t get too excited. I will definitely take the meeting and I will be prepared to be let down. But obviously the meeting kind of went well. Lynn and I connected nicely, and she was excited to start sort of readdressing an old version of the script that she had, with me. And it just then progressed from stage to stage, multiple workshops. Obviously, I met with the estate, and you know, as is the luxury on Broadway, when there is some money involved, you can really develop something.

DEADLINE: What was it that made you think people would say it’s a crazy idea? I could think of a couple reasons fright off the bat…

WHEELDON: I think largely because up to this point I’d only worked on two other Broadway musicals and only really directed one big musical, which is An American in Paris. I’ve choreographed Sweet Smell of Success and an Encores! at City Center, but that’s pretty much it. So, maybe it was insecurity and modesty kicking in and me thinking, well, do I have the experience to handle this property, because of course, it’s complex, and beautiful, and the art is incredible, but there are complexities around this as well. And then also, just my coming from the ballet world, people know me as a ballet choreographer, and Michael was not a ballet dancer. So I suppose all of those questions were kind of feeding in to whether I was the right person to move forward on the show.

And then, of course, Black Lives Matter happened, and this incredible cultural reckoning, and were in a position where we were all forced to ask more questions about whether this was the right thing to do, whether I was the right person to continue on this journey with the cast and with the show. There was a lot of thought, and conversation, and soul searching. I couldn’t have done any of it without the support, and love, and care of Lynn Nottage.

DEADLINE: Well, the two things that might have popped into my mind were, first, how can you find someone to play Michael Jackson? Of course, there are impersonators out there, but when you’re putting it on a Broadway stage, you have to move above a level of impersonation. And then the other concern, obviously, would be the allegations [against Jackson of child molestation]. Did either of those things enter into your thinking?

WHEELDON: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Many, many times. I mean, among many other things. But I think I was never really that concerned about finding someone to play the role, because Lynn and I, from the get go, had a goal set on finding someone who could perhaps capture the essence of Michael, but also kind of shine through as a young  Black performer on a Broadway stage without doing an impersonation. There are many impersonators all over the world, and they’re very, very good, but that’s not what we were interested in. So it then became about finding a young performer with qualities that were very like Michael, but who also had the ability to be themselves in this role. In that respect, Myles was an absolute godsend.

DEADLINE: What about the allegations? I know that the Jackson Estate is a producer, so there had to be a pretty fine line you were walking.

WHEELDON: Well, I mean, of course, and you know, that was very, very much woven into the shaping and our creative process on the show. But Lynn’s intention was always to focus on Michael’s artistic process. That’s also something that really interested and excited me because it’s something that we know, as artists, as performing artists, we know that process, we know the fears around the insecurity, the fears around creating something that is potentially going to top what we created beforehand, and I don’t mean to compare myself to Michael Jackson in any way, but these are all things that we understand and feel, and so the focus was always on this period in Michael’s life and his career where he was really starting to feel irrelevant, and because of that, was fueled creatively on just making these bigger, more sort of outlandishly spectacular shows, and the vulnerability and fragility of being in that position.

So, yes, it was always very much a big part of the conversation, and again, though we had moments where we were fearful, ultimately we felt like this art, and this music, and the power of this music needed to be put in front of an audience again, and that became the fuel for us to continue.

DEADLINE: How did you go about deciding which of the scenes and eras to present on stage? Obviously you had to have Motown 25 in there, you had to have the “Dancing Machine” performance of the Jacksons, the early Ed Sullivan stuff with the younger Jackson Five. And as importantly, how did you go about bringing something new to these very famous performances so it wasn’t mere re-creation?  

WHEELDON: What’s been so interesting to me is, particularly with this show, is just experiencing the line between being director and being choreographer. Lynn and I were interested in exploring the anatomy of Michael’s music, and also of his dances, and kind of breaking down how he would create a song, how we would write a song, recording individual tracks, singing a cappella, creating the rhythm and then layering them with multiple recordings. And similarly with the movement vocabulary. For me, of course, as a choreographer, it was fascinating to dive into Michael’s love for the silver screen and Hollywood, the classic Hollywood musicals and Broadway and even his love for ballet, which we didn’t get to sort of put in there, but he was obsessed with Baryshnikov, and so the structure that Lynne created allows for all of that. It’s in those moments in particular that I am offered the opportunity to sort of see Michael’s movement through my lens, or his processes through my lens, and add my voice to his, fuse my voice to his in some ways.

I had the great fortune to work with the Talauega Brothers, who were incredibly generous with their knowledge of Michael’s intention. They were brilliant at coaching all of us on Michael, and the attitude of Michael, the power of his movement. I discovered that if you slow down videos of Michael dancing, it’s still so incredibly precise that you rarely see the in-between of Michael moving from pose to pose. It’s phenomenal.

DEADLINE: There are two scenes in the production that demonstrate what you’ve just explained – the scene with Quincy Jones when Michael listens to a recording of Nigerian music and then adds his own thing layer by layer [to create music that would be part of his Off The Wall album]; And then you do the same sort of thing later with his dancing, where you bring out Fred Astaire, and the Nicholas Brothers, and Bob Fosse and show how each influenced Michael [and his Smooth Criminal performance].

WHEELDON: Michael processed other people’s ideas through his body in a way that then became his own unique and singular style. He just had this incredible ability to see, ever since he sat in the wings of the Apollo as a kid and studied James Brown and Jackie Wilson, and to just take the best from all of them, and combine them, and really just process them through his own body and his unique kind of elegance, that slightly gangly elegance that goes on top of all the brilliance and the class of those great dancers and just really made something so unique, so singular.

DEADLINE: Some scenes, like the Astaire scene, are fairly simple visually, with a focus very much on the few dancers on stage, and then you have something like the “Thriller” video recreation where the audience essentially becomes immersed in a music video. How did you make the decisions of what effects and projections to use and when?

WHEELDON: This is the first time I’ve ever worked with an LED screen, which at first I was really kind of opposed to, because I’ve seen so many shows where it’s just used as scenery, in a way that is unimaginative and flat, and actually quite distracting.

But working with [projection designer] Peter Nigrini and [scenic designer] Derek McLane and just really talking through how we were going to make this world, this very intimate rehearsal space in which Michael works, take us on these wild technicolor journeys, it started to become really exciting to me, the possibilities of the combination of Derek’s set and the screen. And Peter’s an artist, he works in a very painterly way.

The tech process for this show was really exciting for me, because I’m also a theater design geek. I grew up as a child sitting in my bedroom with an old Victorian toy theater that my dad built for me, and you know, every time I would go and see a show, I would come home and build the set to, say, Starlight Express with my electric cars. I was that kid. So, I tend to have my hand in all of the design in my shows, sometimes perhaps to the annoyance of the designers, but for me, it’s as important a part of the directing and choreographing a show or a ballet as actually putting the steps in the scenes together, because what you’re creating is a vision. So, the technology of this incredible LED screen, and having the money to really explore, was a luxury and super exciting. I think what you end up with is something that’s very, very close to a fusion of theater and cinema.

DEADLINE: You use it to move the story forward as well. I’m thinking of the “Thriller” scene where the character of the father, Joe Jackson, morphs into this monster from “Thriller,” and it’s not only an exciting visual but a comment on the character. 

WHEELDON: Yeah, I mean, the idea for “Thriller,” and “Thriller” being sort of the culmination of Michael’s relationship, in our show, with the father really came about because we knew we had to have “Thriller” in the show. It’s probably the most iconic Michael Jackson song. And it came from Lynn and I sitting down and really thinking hard about, okay, how can we present “Thriller” in a way that feels satisfying, theatrically, that catches some of that brilliance of what Michael did in his original video, but is also the combination of our emotional journey, and is tied into the narrative that we’re telling? It’s funny because we landed on it quite quickly, and it became about, okay, we know that this is where we’re going to go, so how do we start to work our way back from that? And of course, that’s where Lynne is brilliant. And we spent many, many really, really fun afternoons sitting together in my apartment with lots and lots of different colored posters, and we would write down all of our favorite MJ songs, then stick it up on this big mirror that I have over my kitchen table, and then go, okay, so we want these songs, this song might work for this emotional beat, or this part of the story, and that’s how we built a musical structure for the show.

DEADLINE: Did the Jackson family at any point ever express any sort of trepidation over the portrayal of the father? Certainly Michael was been pretty open about him, but did the others enter into the discussions with you at all about Joe Jackson’s violent behavior?

WHEELDON: You know, I have to say, one of the brilliant things that Lia Vollack did for us was to be a very strong sort of mediator between the estate, who, quite naturally, are going to have a very clear opinion on how they perhaps think Michael should be portrayed, and then of course, on the other side, you’ve got Lynn  and I, who were really united in our desire to be fair and to be truthful about the moments that we were putting into the play.

So everything is based on an enormous amount of research that Lynn did – the multiple writings about Michael’s relationship with his father, in Michael’s own words, recorded interviews in Michael’s own words. So I think she felt pretty proud – and I was extremely proud of her – because she really made sure that everything was factual and was correct. When you’re presenting facts, they’re sort of hard to dispute, because it’s out there. It’s public knowledge.

So yes, there were discussions, but Lia is the kind of producer who really does believe in the arts, and I think that’s partly why she thought to bring Lynn and myself together in the first place. She was really fantastic at sort of helping the estate understand what we wanted to do, and similarly, at times, come to us and say, hey, you know, maybe this isn’t quite the right moment at this part of the story. So it was very complicated, but we were all very sensitive to the fact that this was not necessarily going to be the easiest story to tell.

DEADLINE: You said you sort of knew you were working up to “Thriller.” At what point did you realize that you were also working up to the “toaster?” I’m always reluctant to give away what that is, because it’s such a surprising moment, but I guess if you’re a Michael Jackson fan you already know: It’s when he comes flying up through the stage floor. 

WHEELDON: The toaster was in an earlier draft of the script that Lynn had been writing before I came on board, and you know, it just seemed sort of like the perfect representation, I suppose, of Michael’s desire to do things technically in his shows that no one else was doing. We used it as sort of an example of people who were always trying to block his creativity by saying, “You can’t do that.”

I guess watching MJ, you might put two and two together and sort of expect that it’s something that we’re going to do at the end of the show, but I don’t think anyone is quite prepared for the power of how it actually looks. And also, again, the combination of him projectiling out of the stage, and also what happens on the video screen, and what happens with the sound cue, it was a very, very complex moment to tech. We spent a lot of time on it to get it right, because I think the reason ultimately that it’s so thrilling is because everybody is working towards the same goal, all the departments are  finding ways to make it just an absolutely sort of gobsmackingly thrilling moment.

DEADLINE: Even as it’s happening, in that split second, the audience is both aware of the moment and aware that something could have gone really, really wrong. There’s a sense of real danger. I’m sure you guys have worked out all the technical stuff, but when we’re watching it, we don’t know that.

WHEELDON: What’s actually interesting, Greg, is that it’s very simple, far simpler than I thought it was going to be. I had this sort of image of a real toaster, like a real spring mechanism in the base of the stage. But it’s actually a combination of supreme coordination and an elevator trap that just moves very quickly. And it’s the combination of the elevator moving up very quickly and Myles springing off at exactly the right time that creates the height.

DEADLINE: I would have bet money on a toaster spring.

WHEELDON: Yeah, like a Pop Tart. Myles is such a daredevil, he wanted to recreate that moment so brilliantly that he was just going higher and higher with every show, and we just had to say, okay, Myles, it’s probably time to stop trying to be Spider-Man and just think about your eight-show week. We found a balance, and he knows just how to take off correctly to land correctly. It’s all safe.

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